WebProNews

Tag: Keyword Planner

  • AdWords Keyword Planner Adds Conversion Estimates

    Google announced the addition of conversion estimates in the AdWords Keyword Planner.

    The tool is now showing advertisers how varying bids may influence their campaigns’ performance differently for desktop and mobile devices. You can enter your conversion rates and values to see how changing your bids may impact estimated conversions, , ROAS, Avg CPA, and total conversion value for mobile and desktop.

    “Let’s say you’re an online retailer gearing up for the busy shopping season with a cost-per-acquisition target of $25,” Google explains in a Google+ post. “In the example image below, you can see how varying your bids may influence your average cost-per-acquisition based on the conversion rates and values that you’ve entered.”

    “Now let’s say you realize that people who search on mobile devices are twice as valuable to you as people searching on desktops,” it adds. “You’ll be able to see how changing the mobile bid adjustment will help you get the best ROI from your campaign.”

    Google makes a point to note that campaign performance depends on a variety of factors, so you probably shouldn’t completely rely on this.

    Google talks more about understanding Keyword Planner stats and traffic forecasts here.

    Image via Google

  • How To Use The Keyword Planner, According To Google

    Google has released a new video about how to use the Keyword Planner. If this isn’t something you’ve messed around with much yet, give it a watch.

    Google killed the old AdWords Keyword Tool last summer in favor of the Keyword Planner. More on that here.

    Google has been releasing a lot of short little AdWords tips videos lately. Here’s one from yesterday when they answered user-submitted questions.

    Image via YouTube

  • Keyword Planner Alternatives For Keyword Research: Who Will Rise To The Challenge?

    With the rise of ‘Not Provided’ and the recent death of the beloved Google Keyword Tool, it’s clear that the biggest player in search is trying to reduce SEOs’ obsession over keywords. These changes also reflect Google’s increase in monetization of their keyword data. Why else would they allow you to compare organic versus paid traffic on bid keywords in Adwords while leaving Analytics users in the dark?

    If you aren’t as cynical as I am, it’s easy to see that the new tool was actually designed for the PPC specialists. My biggest pet peeve is the removal of the “closely related filter.” This is clearly the biggest blow for SEOs. The tool is definitely still usable for keyword research, especially on the ultra local level, but it clearly isn’t really intended for that task.

    Keyword Planner

    This doesn’t mean that keyword research is dead; it just forces SEOs to begin using more alternatives to Google’s tools.

    Free Keyword Tool Alternatives

    To this date, there are only two completely free keyword planner alternatives. While, they are not optimal for SEOs, these free tools can help you decide on new niches to target or plan your next link building campaign effectively.

    Bing Keyword Tool

    Keyword Research

    The biggest disadvantage with using the Bing Keyword Tool is that the data is not from Google. The volume is usually hovering between 10% and 25% of Google’s planner for most keywords. However, unlike the Keyword Planner, you have a “strict” filter that acts like the old “closely related” filter which is great for increasing your keyword target spread.

    The tool is still in Beta and I look forward to seeing how Bing capitalizes on SEOs’ complaints about the Planner. You’ll also need to claim a website in Bing Webmaster Tools in order to use the tool.

    Google Trends & Webmaster Tools

    The only advantage of both these tools is that the data is straight from Google itself. The numbers are definitely questionable and only a very limited amount of data is available.

    Webmaster Tools limits itself to keywords on which your sites are already getting impressions. The data helps you strategize but won’t give you any data on words you might be interested in ranking on.

    Google Trends

    On the other hand, Google Trends can also be useful for planning content for referral traffic, but the data does not give you any idea of the actual traffic your article might get if it ranked first on the keyword.

    Freemium Keyword Tool Alternatives

    The problem with a lot of keyword research tools is that they are advertised as free tools, but there are usually some limitations to free access. You most likely will still need to sign up with an account, and even spend some money to get the best keyword data from them. The free versions aren’t always useful as stand-alone software. This is especially true when trying to find new keywords. This can obviously be solved by using a suggestion tool like Ubersuggest.

    Wordtracker

    Don’t be fooled by the Wordtracker home page. Their free keyword tool can be found on this subdomain. The tool will give you access to US, UK and Global search volume for the keywords you put in, but not much else. This is where Ubersuggest will come into play. To actually get suggestions and get country level keyword search data, you will actually have to sign up and pay a small fee.

    Wordtracker

    SEMRush

    SEMRush is one of my favorite tools because it’s extremely versatile. The reason why I like the tool so much for Keyword Research is that it also gives a lot of PPC info, which is great for figuring out the most profitable keywords. However, it suffers from most of the problems the other freemium tools in that its broad range suggestions of new keywords is not very robust.

    Paid Keyword Tool Alternatives

    If you’re looking to invest in a paid tool, be careful! There are a lot of tools that will get you to pay and not really be much help at all because they either require proxies, multiple Adwords accounts, or merely just change the user interface and give you the same data you could get for cheaper elsewhere.

    Advanced Web Ranking

    If you’re already using Advanced Web Ranking and just hate the UX of the new Keyword Planner, their tool does great and will let you compare Google results to SEMRush, Wordtracker and more. In addition, you’ll also get to see where your site currently ranks during the keyword research which is a great!

    All things considered, there are a lot of options out there, but if you want Google’s data, it might be best to just stick to the planner and use a paid tool like Advanced Web Ranking to provide a better user interface. Looking towards the future, I can see a lot more and better free tools being developed by big SEO software companies and I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

  • AdWords Keyword Tool Is No More, Enter Keyword Planner

    Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool is officially dead. It now redirects to a support page explaining that, “Keyword Planner has replaced Keyword Tool.”

    Was Google replacing the Keyword Tool a good move? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Google announced back in May that it was combing Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator into a new tool called Keyword Planner.

    “Behind every successful AdWords campaign are well planned out keywords and ad groups,” said AdWords product manager Deepti Bhatnagar at the time. “In the past, you may have relied on tools like the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator to identify new keywords and ad groups, get traffic estimates, and choose competitive bids and budgets. Over time however, we’ve heard from you that having two tools for search campaign building was cumbersome.”

    “We’re constantly working to simplify the process of building campaigns, and today we’re happy to announce the launch of a new tool, Keyword Planner, which combines the functionality of the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator into a smooth, integrated workflow,” Bhatnagar added. “You can use Keyword Planner to find new keyword and ad group ideas, get performance estimates for them to find the bid and budget that are right for you, and then add them to your campaigns.”

    Apparently the new tool isn’t going over so well among Keyword Tool fans. As Ginny Marvin at Search Engine Land points out, Twitter users have been complaining quite a bit.

    Here are a few examples:

    A WebProNews reader (in the comments) writes, “OMG Google, what have you done to me. I used the old tool to research keywords for meta data on websites. If finding good organic search terms wasn’t hard enough you have now made it almost impossible to understand what has a low competition.”

    There are plenty of others who would echo such sentiment. Google already made things harder on webmasters with the big Google Analytics switch to “not provided”. Some feel that this complicates things more.

    For organic search, however, Google has clearly been looking to move further and further away from keyword dependence for the results it returns.

    This week Google also launched some new conversion tracking features for AdWords cross-account conversion tracking and cross-account search funnels .

    If you have multiple AdWords accounts, you’ll be able to measure conversions across all accounts with one tag, and use cross-account search funnels reports in your My Client Center to get a better handle on your customers’ conversion paths across all keywords in all accounts.

    WIth cross-account conversion tracking, advertisers can create a snippet of code for use across all accounts.

    The search funnels reports include the Overview report, the Top Conversion Paths report and the Assisted Conversions report. The Overview shows you how consumers interact with all of your adds across all accounts, the Top Conversion Paths report shows you which combinations of keywords drive the most conversions, and the Assisted Conversions report shows upper funnel keywords across your accounts that might not be receiving enough value in your attribution measurement.

    These features will be rolling out over the course of the coming months.

    Is the Keyword Tool being replaced a big deal or are people overreacting? Let us know what you think.

    Note: This article has been updated from its original form.

    Image: Google

  • Google Combines Keyword Tool, Traffic Estimator Into Keyword Planner

    Google Combines Keyword Tool, Traffic Estimator Into Keyword Planner

    Google has combined the Keyword Tool and the Traffic Estimator into one tool called the Keyword Planner.

    “Behind every successful AdWords campaign are well planned out keywords and ad groups,” says AdWords product manager Deepti Bhatnagar. “In the past, you may have relied on tools like the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator to identify new keywords and ad groups, get traffic estimates, and choose competitive bids and budgets. Over time however, we’ve heard from you that having two tools for search campaign building was cumbersome.”

    “We’re constantly working to simplify the process of building campaigns, and today we’re happy to announce the launch of a new tool, Keyword Planner, which combines the functionality of the Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator into a smooth, integrated workflow,” says Bhatnagar. “You can use Keyword Planner to find new keyword and ad group ideas, get performance estimates for them to find the bid and budget that are right for you, and then add them to your campaigns.”

    The tool also comes with some new features, including the ability to find new keyword and ad group ideas by “multiplying” keywords (combining two or more lists to generate new keywords. It will now let you target individual cities and regions within a country.

    It also lets you add keyword and group ideas to a “plan,” which Google describes as a shopping cart of ideas that you can add to a current or new campaign.

    For more on plans and on the tool in general, read this.

    The Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator will be sunsetting in about sixty days.